Singapore

Partners situated in Singapore

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Singapore in a nutshell

Singapore (Chinese: 新加坡; pinyin: Xīnjiāpō; Malay: Singapura; Tamil: சிங்கப்பூர், Cingkappūr), officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island city-state located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, lying 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator, south of the Malaysian state of Johor and north of Indonesia's Riau Islands. At 710.2 km2 (274.2 sq mi), Singapore, a microstate and the smallest nation in Southeast Asia, is by orders of magnitude larger than Monaco, Andorra and Vatican City, the only other surviving sovereign city-states.

The population of Singapore is approximately 4.86 million.

Since independence, Singapore's standard of living has risen dramatically. Foreign direct investment and a state-led drive to industrialisation based on plans drawn up by the Dutch economist Albert Winsemius have created a modern economy focused on industry, education and urban planning. Singapore is the 5th wealthiest country in the world in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita.In December 2008, the foreign exchange reserves of this small island nation stood at around US$174.2billion. The Singapore government had for the first time in history tapped into her official reserves and withdrew some S$4.9 billion with the President's approval. The funds were then used as part of the S$20.5 billion Resilience Package unveiled by Finance Minister Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam on 5 February 2009. As at January 2009 Singapore's official reserves stood at US$170.3 billion.

In 2009, Economist Intelligence Unit has ranked Singapore the 10th most expensive city in the world in which to live. It is the 3rd most expensive Asian city to live in, after Japanese cities Tokyo and Osaka.

Singapore is highly cosmopolitan and diverse with Chinese people forming an ethnic majority with large populations of Malay, Indian and other people. English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese are the official languages.

The Constitution of the Republic of Singapore established the nation's political system as a representative democracy, while the country is recognised as a parliamentary republic. The People's Action Party (PAP) dominates the political process and has won control of Parliament in every election since self-government in 1959.

Higher education

Universities in Singapore

(this is an important section)

Higher education reform

The Bologna Process

(very important for European countries)

Virtual Campuses in HE

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

These include:

1. Nanyang Technological University
2. National University of Singapore
3. SIM University (UNISIM, UniSIM) was opened in 2005 as Singapore's first private university. The university is part of the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) Group. UniSIM has both full-time and part-time students, and is dedicated to providing working professionals with the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications for lifelong employability. It also seeks to give adult learners the chance to acquire university degrees.

Interesting Programmes

1. PurpleTrain.com was founded as "Asia's first e-Learning provider" in 1999. It is the largest e-Learning provider outside the United States, with over 72,000 users. PurpleTrain.com offers online courses from organisations including the University of Portsmouth (UK), University of Wales (UK), Macquarie University (Australia), and Curtin University of Technology (Australia). Targeted students are largely from Asian countries, e.g. Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
2. Universitas 21 Global (U21Global) is a joint educational venture of Universitas 21 and the Thomson Corporation established in 1997. Based in Singapore, U21Global offers online postgraduate degree programmes in partnership with an international network of universities. Partners include Lund University, the National University of Singapore, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tecnológico de Monterrey, the University College Dublin, the University of Birmingham, the University of Queensland and others.
3. Nanyang Technological University
4. National University of Singapore
5. SIM University

Re.ViCa Case-study

None.

References

(try to add one or two)

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